Lucasta Miller

How ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ plays tricks with the mind

First published in 1798, Coleridge’s masterpiece, about a man obsessed with retelling his story, has obsessed readers ever since, because it never offers up closure

‘The Mariner gazes on the serpents in the ocean’: illustration by Gustave Doré. [Getty Images] 
issue 17 August 2024

I’ve just returned from five days in the Lake District, attending the biennial ‘Friends of Coleridge’ conference in Grasmere. All the other attendees were seasoned Coleridge scholars, but I was a newbie. The reason for my going was the fact that I’m engaged in a project that has at times felt something of a lonesome road and indeed an albatross: to write a book about Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’.

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